Tuesday At Four PM
by obi-glasses
Summary: TFP: "..Ratchet had seen so many different types of fake human guts that he now considered himself a professor of horror movie props." One-shot.


_My first Transformers story, woohoo! Sorry if anyone's OOC in this fic. Please review and tell me what you thought._

0000

Movie Night at Autobot Outpost Omega-1 was a convoluted phenomenon even before the three human children arrived. Movies would be chosen based on three different categories of criteria: one, how bad was it? Two, what was it rated? Three, did Prime approve? If it was completely awful, rated NC-17 and Prime's left optic twitched at the summary, then it was approved. This, of course, meant every horror movie that existed ever, including such golden oldies as _Tarantula _and _Night of the Living Dead. _Ratchet had seen so many different types of fake human guts that he now considered himself a professor of horror movie props. He even briefly considered printing a fake degree to hang in his room, but realized it would be a waste of ink and careful handling of thin paper.

Now, though, there were two young, impressionable human children (and Jack, who was not young nor impressionable but still didn't have the bearings to sit through a Saw movie marathon) and one nurse who liked intelligent movies around to help pick movies. Ratchet got to see a fairly interesting amount of movie fare every Tuesday at around four. But the criteria for choosing a movie got even more complicated, though; now they had to run it past June, who disapproved of paper cuts; Miko, who loved a good explosion; Raf, who adored James Bond and Mission Impossible; Jack, who .. well, he was sixteen, so anything with nudity was in.

And then there was Ratchet himself, who was trained in the art of the fake temper tantrum to the point where sometimes Optimus Prime himself couldn't tell if Ratchet was really upset over something so tiny as Jurassic Park being completely impossible even in modern times. (That was one of his personal bests, as far as the medic was concerned.) He threw a fit over the tiniest things in the hope that someday, Movie Night would be abolished and he would get to have a constructive, blessedly _quiet _Tuesday afternoon without gore, bad humor or 'sensual' movies.

This was not going to be one of those rare Tuesdays.

"I'm telling you, _Canadian Bacon,_" June said amongst the din of six other voices. "It's hilarious, it's decent for children, it's got Alan Alda.. it's perfect for tonight."

_Please Primus no, _Ratchet begged silently, stuck in the corner with the main computer console. He would have fled base by now, but Optimus was obviously completely out of his element on this one- he was on forced house arrest until Ratchet's nerves smoothed out after the whole memory-loss incident. All in all, this Tuesday promised to be right up there with February 3rd (otherwise known as 'The Great and Horrible Spaghetti Incident') in infamous movie nights.

"Oh, _puh-leeze_," Miko said in her best Ratchet impression. "Tonight is _totally _a '_The Shining_' night. All work and no play, man! All work and _no play_!"

"Absolutely not," June said sternly. "We are _not _going to be watching that- that filth. No."

"Well, you're just _zero _fun," Miko said, still falling politely aside as Raf raised his hand.

"What about _Up_? That's a good movie. I saw it already in theaters and I really liked it."

Jack nodded quietly, writing it down on the cluttered notepad he held on his lap. "_Up. _Okay, we've got _Up, Canadian Bacon, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Predator, Alien: Ressurection, Bridesmaids.._ anyone wanna suggest some other movies?"

"_Hot Fuzz_," Arcee spoke up. "It's got humor, it's a cop movie.. it's British."

"It's also got a guy getting his jaw impaled on wood. No, thank you," Bulkhead said, waving one hand dismissively.

"You get all wigged out over one shard of wood yet you can sit through the face-melting scene in _The Lost Ark_? Bulkhead, Bulkhead." Arcee shook her head sadly. Bulkhead aimed a dirty look in her general direction.

"Is _Hot Fuzz _on the list or not?" Jack asked impatiently.

"Off," June interrupted Arcee. "Definitely off."

"Wh- Fine, it's off. But the next time you work an extra shift we're watching it," the blue femme warned, wagging one finger at June.

"_Godfather,_" Miko said after a moment of pensive silence.

/_Not the first one, absolutely not the first one,_/ Bumblebee said.

"We could watch the second one, the second one's pretty good," Raf said, looking up at his guardian. The scout's doorwings perked up in agreement.

"You got an opinion on any of this, Optimus?" Jack asked politely. Optimus's head jerked up, and for a whole second the base got an opticful of his best 'Dear Primus, not me' face before he smoothed his features into an impassive look and shook his head 'no'.

"Okay, no." Ratchet could _feel _the teen contemplating whether or not to ask him about his thoughts- he decided to nip that right in the bud by hitting the control panel angrily and muttering Cybertronian curse words quietly. The interest in the orange-and-white faded quickly, to his relief.

"_Snakes on a Plane,_" Jack suggested. The three simultaneous Evil Eyes he got (from Bumblebee, June and Raf respectively) shot down that idea amazingly fast.

/_Since we're doing crazy movie suggestions, how's about _Knocked Up?/ Bumblebee asked.

"_No,_" Arcee and Optimus both said at once. The scout's doorwings faltered slightly.

There were several long minutes, in which nobody seemed to have anything even unintelligent to say, until Raf revealed his hidden brass bearings and turned to Ratchet. "Do you.. want to suggest anything?"

The room dropped ten degrees instantly; Arcee clutched at Bulkhead's arm, Bumblebee's optics whirled in disbelief. Optimus turned to the medic, hands open to haul him away at any moment should he start a scene.

Ratchet took his sweet time in responding; he could hardly yell at the boy but he would indeed savor the fear of his comrades as they anticipated the best blowout since _Independance Day_'s mothership-explosion scene. Finally, he turned to face them, and the looks on their faceplates were indeed sweetly satisfying. He opened his mouth to speak; Bumblebee's shoulders tensed.

"_The King's Speech,_" was all Ratchet had to say. He turned back to the computer console and continued playing Minecraft, while the rest of the room reattached their jaws to their faces (and the humans got over their surely mind-blowing amounts of confusion).

"_The King's Speech_ it is," Arcee said.


End file.
